Day: October 26, 2010

understanding love

I was given a mantra when I was 18
directly after a two week introduction to yoga
i used it for a year with regularity
then sporadically
when i was 29 I was given a mantra by Amaji
I used it only once
but what was given to me with that was a translation of the first manta: “Love”

last month
I was given another manta
again, containing that same sound
he translated it as “the supreme creative intelligence”
which is
of course
the same as Love

I was hateful and unloving as a child
or desperately otherwise, but failing
til I soured into bitterness
then cooled into numbness
at 21 I fell in love with a man
i thought I’d never do that
imagining coupling to be a waste of time
as evidenced by my parents
desperation begetting misery
begetting more desperation and misery
but there I was
singing “love” to myself long enough to
“fall in love”
it didn’t last too long
but when I cooled from the burns
I realized I still lived him
and now wanted to
earn his love
( instead of getting the love he gave freely in our falling state )
in order to be fit for loving
I realized I had to
be a better person
Love=growth
oh
raise me up on Eagle’s wings
I was amazed to witness that Love should inspire me to make myself a better person
while all the hatred had convinced me I should rot til final death
and the apathy left me uncaring as I bounced through life’s events
Love demanded I become Better
Grow
succeed
surpass

I forgot all of that
my heart crushed repeatedly
not just by that man
his inability to be present to my attempts at growth
but all others past him
a wild succession of failed lovers
so I performed
even the world stealing my love
and breaking it
I was left emotionless again
just with my abstract ideas
a memory
what it would be like to love
a useless desire
look into the horizion
no star nor sun in sight
but drive on
for it will make the world a better place
this wasteland filled with only self destruction
misery
and despair

where I was born again

at least I had my imaginary guide now
and I did push on
I do
the landscape is like the southern Arizona desert
(where perhaps I never left)
and occasionally it rains
and then there is color
which often fades back into hardness
friends with the tarantulas and coyote
the mountain lions and rattle snaked
all who keep themselves hidden
leaving mr with cactus…
what kind of succulent am I?

how did I get here again?
Venus Retrograde.
perhaps I’m still on that acid trip
God Alone In The Desert
have fun on your own for eternity
Your Imminence

(maybe if I smoked Salvia with strong abandon I could wake up from any of those nightmares of hallucination and have another chance to walk on into the light of dawn and join the living… is that where I left my heart)

this whole writing this morning was inspired by my sister leaving me a voicemail
“I’m outside at Louis’ house, smoking a cigarette. i’m being shamed for being drunk…”
i woke up thinking about the baby, Connor. my nephew
how could you be drunk around him?
not two years old
how could you exhale breath tainted with tar and other poisons?
he’s new and fresh
only loving and needing and curious
receptive of everything
a baby is a ball of pure love
even though they are needy and oddly shaped
everyone sees them as beauty and longs to touch them
to feel their constant love and joy of life
isn’t that the same thing as my imagined Father or Husband?
doesn’t that love inspire us to be a better person?
to want to purify ourselves
to purify the air
to purify the world
for a chance for that child to grow up pure?

shouldn’t we?

but… I always forget… Humanity
the baby will have to get dirty
blind and ignorant
only through that can he yearn for perfection

I am a person where perfection was always in the past
everything tending towards entropy
progression a long decline

neither is true
of course
perfect is what Is
I know

but it’s how I am..

But on mornings like this
where I can wake and remember Love
and chew it my mighty jaws
while dreams fade of Swiss rivers of beautiful blue, me on my bike… with a friend, a lost back pack
forest there, an opportunity to escape
the reaches of the tangled city with all its potential
live and desire

oh
I’m glad to remember love
and the uses of love
and the prevalence of love
even as I masticate it
and leave my mouth empty again

time to get up and make some tea

.iP

I’ve gone through the gamut to get to gratefulness
but tonight
that is what I feel

I am grateful that Leo is well now
same old Leo
but for less hours a day
he cooks
he eats
I read to him
he sleeps
we drink some wine
this is what we do
it’s how he is

and soon will I have to wipe is chin? his ass?
put a pillow over his face?

I have to let him have his death

by the time we got here I was already hating him
Venus retrograde
all those old grievances
everything he said was in defense
slight insults

tired
traveling
I got up here and all I saw was the neglect
the filth
oh! what depth the neglect!

yesterday I felt disgust
I felt horrible
and when I lay down in bed I could not sleep
just like the last week in NYC
I was very unsettled
and played with my devices til 1 am
trying to write. unable to start. trying to watch tv/movie. unable to engage. not horny, but turning to porn to distract my mind… which worked
and I tried to keep it spinning with SD for a while… eventually came and used it as the common exit into sleep
I woke tired and achy
still a bit pissy
but that quickly faded
I came again to the same thing later in the day
and cleaned the place up a bit
eventually finding compassion and appreciation

to have this time
to
interview him
to see and listen

so it has been these many months
going through anger at/with him
letting it go
compassion
love
gratitude

I don’t even feel this writing is necessary now
of course I want to record everything
hold on to the scraps of him

but I must sleep

.iP

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how do we Americans use this word wrong? is not what you are is narrowed against America? closing your heart to it?
I once used to say I never got bored
except by other people
and if I stayed with them anyway
with awareness of that boredom (boring, like a drill through my skull or heart) I got frustrated: knowing my ability to free myself but not acting in that way for some other reason: to support the person.. or garner respect from them. frustrated with the knowledge I could end my suffering
if I stayed like that for any length of time I tended to get angry
which tended to make mr stupid
and forget that I had the ability to walk away and entertain myself in a more pleasurable way
I’d usually get so stupid i’d try and change the person who was boring me
which was the stupidest of all
then we’d probably fight

until one of us left.

is the answer, then, to open more?
turn the other cheek? or ear?
hear more? compassion more? vision more? interest in whatever was so boring anyway? let it lap like a wave… fall like the rain… open to what is…
does that quell Anger?

what else, then… what else is anger?

.iP